Which is why I will never buy a modern console. Once the company making them shutdowns the servers, the hardware will be useless. Unlike retro consoles that use physical media, which are highly sought after today.
Nintendo usually doesn’t do the right thing, but they kept the wii shop working for around 15 years after the console released, which seems reasonable enough, though for how much hosting costs they should still be offering downloads. IIRC you could store downloaded games on an SD cars so you could make a backup.
Now the WiiU and 3DS, their online stuff shuttered too early. If I had bought Mariokart 8 digitally for my WiiU and wanted to redownload it, I would be unable, yet Nindendo still sells the same game on their newer switch store.
The only Nintendo games I can say I own are the ones decrypted on my NAS that work with FOSS emulators.
The Wii store remains my go-to example when talking to people who actually believe they own their digital purchases.
Like, Nah fam.
Which is why I will never buy a modern console. Once the company making them shutdowns the servers, the hardware will be useless. Unlike retro consoles that use physical media, which are highly sought after today.
Nintendo usually doesn’t do the right thing, but they kept the wii shop working for around 15 years after the console released, which seems reasonable enough, though for how much hosting costs they should still be offering downloads. IIRC you could store downloaded games on an SD cars so you could make a backup. Now the WiiU and 3DS, their online stuff shuttered too early. If I had bought Mariokart 8 digitally for my WiiU and wanted to redownload it, I would be unable, yet Nindendo still sells the same game on their newer switch store. The only Nintendo games I can say I own are the ones decrypted on my NAS that work with FOSS emulators.